In recent decades scholars have shown considerable and steadily
increasing interest in medieval discussions of rights. This book aims to
make a significant contribution to scholarship by providing a detailed
and systematic account of Conrad Summenhart’s (c.1458-1502) language of
individual rights. Starting from the view that Summenhart’s Opus septipartitum
contains a carefully constructed and comprehensive theory of individual
rights, this study analyses Summenhart’s theory in its historical
context, treating it as a culmination of late medieval discourse on
individual rights. This study
is particularly useful to scholars interested in the origin of human
rights language and modern political individualism, as well as to all
those who work in the field of late medieval and early modern political
and moral philosophy.

This book helps fill a large gap in our knowledge about the history of
theories and theorizing about rights. Interest in "human" rights has
grown steadily over the last sixty years or so, and it has been
matched by a corresponding interest in the pre-modern (early-modern)
history of 'natural' rights. Jussi Varkemaa's book on Conrad
Summenhart (ca. 1458-1502) can be seen as another example of this
trend. Its main value lies in the close reading of the first part of
Summenhart's massive Septipertitum opus de contractibus pro foro
conscientie atque theologico, which opens with a detailed analysis
of ius and dominium. Varkemaa's bibliography is proof
that not many scholars have tried to work their way through the
Septipertitum opus, and the rest of his book is proof that
Summenhart's views are well worth studying, both on his own terms and
because of his influence on the School of Salamanca. We should
hope for more books like this if we hope to press the case that
medieval intellectuals played an important role in later thinking
about rights. [footnotes omitted]